RCP to President Reuven Rivlin: Where is your Jewish Pride?
Then
During a meeting with the leadership of the Rabbinical Congress for Peace in 2008. Mr. Reuven Rivlin then Speaker of the Knesset said, “one of our greatest problems is that there are ‘fools’ who sanctify the word “peace” even though there is no real substance in the peace that they are promoting.
Today
President Rivlin in an article in the Washington Post is promoting precisely that peace that he describes as no real substance in it.
The Rabbinical Congress for Peace sent the following letter to President Reuven Rivlin Dec. 14, 2015.
His Excellency
Reuven Rivlin
President of Israel
Shalom Uvracha:
We were shocked to read your article in The Washington Post in which you blame the Israeli government for not doing enough to achieve peace with our neighbors. Although towards the end of the article you also blame the Palestinians for incitement and violence against Israel, the bulk of the article focuses on what Israel must do to achieve “peace,” not what the Palestinians must do.
Notwithstanding your full right to express your personal opinion, the problem remains: How will such an opinion be interpreted by the world and our enemies, when it is written by the highest-ranking official in Israel? Indeed, the Arab world has been quoting you repeatedly in blaming Israel. Your words now encourage an increase in terror.
Precisely now, when our enemies are incessantly stabbing, murdering, and shooting Jews, and precisely during Chanukah, when a victorious few stood up with Jewish pride against the many, and when the righteous defied the wicked, the President of Israel arrives in the U.S. and proclaims that he views with favor the proposal that those murderers should receive a city in Judea and Samaria?!
Mr. President, where is your Jewish pride? Is it not obvious that such an article not only fails to bring peace closer but distances it even further, and actually undermines security?
Our holy Torah tells us that “when a ruler sins,” he must bring a sin-offering and repent. True, we do not have a Holy Temple and the kind of ruler mentioned in the Torah does not exist today. Nevertheless, as Israel’s Number One citzen, surely you must do some soul-searching. It is time to recognize the sin of slandering your nation, and the harm and danger that such words cause.
It is never too late to repent completely. We call on you, Mr. President, to retract your words immediately before the damage and harm grow even more.
Respectfully,
Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky Rabbi Sholom Gold Rabbi Avrohom S. Lewin
Chairman Member of the Board Executive Director